Larger Downtown Grocery Store Opens Today

Today a grocery store 3 times the size of the one we’ve had for the last 5 years opens.  Culinaria opens at 9th & Olive in the ground floor of the 9th Street Garage on the site of the historic marble-clad Century Building.

Culinaria is a small format store by local chain Schnuck’s.  A typical new Schnuck’s is 63,000 square feet whereas Culinaria is a third that size at 20,000SF.  Still that is a far cry larger than the 6,500SF City Grocers that opened in October 2004.  We all owe developer Craig Heller thanks for stepping into grocery business when nobody, including Schnuck’s, would locate downtown.

The shelves are stocked and tables are set up on the sidewalk. 15 minute parking is allowed on 9th in front of the store – no meters yet.  Additional parking is available in the garage which is entered from Olive.

I’ve not been inside yet but from the outside I have some complaints.

A new “dish rack” bike rack has been added to the public sidewalk.  The worst possible rack choice.  Once used the bikes will project into the walking path of the sidewalk.  As I’ve mentioned before, with this type of rack you can only secure one wheel but not the frame.  With so many bikes having quick release hubs it is easy for a thief to leave the wheel and take the rest of the bike.  I doubt this rack will get much use — a good thing because the sidewalk won’t be blocked. The rack type that should have been selected is the inverted-U:

This type of rack places bikes parallel, rather than perpendicular to, pedestrians on the sidewalk.   The rack that was installed on 9th should never have gotten city approval.

The store entrance is not very appealing.  This door takes you to the elevators to go up into the parking garage.  Past the elevators is an automatic door for entering Culinaria.  The problem for me in my wheelchair and for parents pushing strollers is the door lacks an electric assist.  The button-activated door at City Grocers has been very handy.  I’ll need to hug the ash tray to get where I can open this door.  Hopefully they will add an opener to this door soon.

Store hours are to be 6am to 10pm daily.  I just hope they don’t cut back on those hours in the future. I’ll appreciate the extra hour in the evening — City Grocers has always closed at 9pm.

City Grocers, at 10th & Olive, is retooling and becoming City Gourmet.

– Steve Patterson

City of St. Louis Back in St. Louis County

I don’t quite understand it, in last weeks poll 45% of you felt the most important non-project for St. Louis was to rejoin St. Louis County as the 92nd municipality.  Most assumptions about the city rejoining the county have the city limits unchanged.  What changes is the boundaries of St. Louis County.

The main advantage for the city & county would be the elimination of duplicate “county” offices.  Although I’m not sure St. Louis County’s systems & personnel could handle the addition of the city so the duplication could not fully be eliminated. With separate courts, property records and marriage licenses since 1876 merging these into one would be a major task.  Counties throughout the country often have more than one judicial center so I could see both remaining in operation.

The option I didn’t give you in the poll would be better and even more unlikely — a single unified city-county merger.  All the 91 municipalities in St. Louis County would get wrapped together in a single unit of government along with the City of St. Louis and currently unincorporated areas of St. Louis County.  93 government entities would become one.

Economically depressed Wellston might like the idea but well to do Ladue would never go for it.  But one unit of government for the area known as the City of St. Louis & St. Louis County makes the most sense.

Perhaps getting the city back into the county is the first step?  Studying the various ways these mergers have been accomplished is of course an important step.  There is no single way to “merge” the city back into the county. Each will have a long list of pros & cons.  Just being one of too many county municipalities doesn’t appeal to me.

– Steve Patterson

Steve Patterson on KDHX radio 8/10, 7PM

I’ll be a guest on KDHX’s Collateral Damage program Monday 8/10/09 from 7pm to 7:30pm.  Use the comments below to suggest discussion topics.  Tune in at 88.1FM or listen online at kdhx.org.

– Steve Patterson

No Overnight Parking

My brother’s subdivision, located in a far sprawling area within Oklahoma City’s huge city limits, is a curiosity to me.  No doubt we have similar subdivisions in the St. Louis region.  Every region in the US likely has a similar situation.

The subdivision is gated.  Not just to outsiders but from one part to another – wouldn’t want the Riff Raff from 3 blocks away in our part of the same subdivision.

The sidewalks don’t leave the subdivision because the major roads outside the subdivision lack sidewalks.  I can see the grocery store from his front walk but to get there requires a car trip.

Although they have plenty of room between the curbs & sidewalks, they have zero street trees.  Apparently tree-lined streets are a bad thing?  The one decorative tree in each front lawn is kept back so it can’t won’t shade the sidewalk.

The streets are not public but are privately owned & maintained by the home owners.  All houses have 3-car garages – the minimum allowed.  You can leave a non-commercial vehicle on your driveway but don’t think of leaving your car on the too wide subdivision streets overnight.  Commercial vehicles (company SUV with name on the side, for example) must be kept in the garage.

The logic goes that parked cars on the street overnight is low class and tacky.  To protect their home values, the streets must be free of vehicles.  They live in an environment where the car is a must but they don’t want to see the cars at night.

I don’t get the logic at all.

To me the narrower tree-lined streets in older areas or New Urbanist areas like New Town at St. Charles (above) are so much more appealing, visually & functionally.

The 3-car wide driveways and the series of garage doors is much more an issue for me.  Narrow streets with parked cars help slow traffic.

Are people selecting the suburban subdivision because they is what they want or are people buying in them because they are the current perception of the ideal living environment?  Has anyone given it much thought?

Clearly the developers, in writing the rules for subdivisions, have set out guidelines that are counter to my way of thinking.  It is not like buyers have any real choice — all the new development follows the same formula – except for the New Urbanist developments which are hard to build because zoning mandates the suburban/sprawl ideal.

I’d love to buy a house in such a subdivision and plant street trees after removing the original lawn ornament tree.  I wouldn’t want to live there, just challenge their view of an ideal place to call home.  But seriously, we’ve got a major sticking issue if people don’t want cars on the street overnight.

– Steve Patterson

Bike Station Needed Downtown

Brian Spellecy of the blog, Downtown St. Louis Business, recently emailed me about bike stations.  He was thinking about one for St. Louis and it got me thinking about one again.

Nearly four years ago on October 14th, 2005 I did a post (Four Flavors for the St. Louis Riverfront) reviewing the four riverfront proposals and their inclusion of a bike station:

The plaza is already built across from the Old Post Office and it lacks even a bike rack.  Scratch that location off the list.  Two blocks of the Gateway Mall are now the wonderful Citygarden.  Two more blocks off the list of potential sites.

Remaining would be on or under part of the two city blocks that contain Kiener Plaza & the Morton May Amphitheater.  This would be an excellent spot for offering bike rentals as well as food & drink sales via a connected kiosk.

Another is under the block containing the ‘Twain’ sculpture by Richard Serra, immediately west of Citygarden.  Like Chicago’s Bike Station in Millennium Park, our station could be underground with a simple glass structure above grade.  This would add a new level of activity to that block without competing visually with the Twain sculpture.

Of course a bike station can be fitted into an existing structure as well.  A bike station provides secure bike parking, lockers, showers and often bike repair services.  The idea is to provide a place where workers can bike downtown, shower & change for work. We have a number of buildings with vacant ground floor space that might be well suited for such a role.

The ones I know of are not owned by the municipality — rather they are part of a not-for-profit organization.  Some cities likely help out such as getting the facility built and then leasing it to a group that manages the day to day operations.

Ideally we’d determine the center point of the greatest concentration of downtown workers and locate the bike station at that point.

If we want more cyclists/fewer cars downtown providing a bike station is a step in the right direction. A great facility could be viewed by businesses as a bonus to their workers — a reason to stay downtown or to relocate downtown.

– Steve Patterson